Reading and ‘wrighting
Young Chang
It’s terrifying to hear your own words read aloud for the first time,
playwright Julia Cho said.
Unlike prose or poetry, dramatic stage works need to be heard and
perfected in the way they sound. The Brooklyn-based writer thought she’d
eventually get over the tremors of first-time readings. But Cho, whose
play “99 Histories” is part of next week’s Pacific Playwrights Festival,
still gets antsy when a new work becomes verbal.
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to be present at a reading,” the
26-year-old said. “Or I’m watching the audience. The audience will never
lead you wrong. If they’re engaged in it, you can feel it. If they’re
not, you can feel it.”
Cho and four other playwrights will have their works read aloud for
the readings segment of the fifth annual festival, which will continue in
August with the 17th annual Hispanic Playwrights Project.
The festival is split into two parts this year to work around SCR’s
expansion and construction.
Richard Greenberg’s “The Dazzle,” which received its West Coast
premiere last month at SCR and runs through April 28, and Horton Foote’s
current premiere of “Getting Frankie Married -- And Afterwards” are also
part of the festival.
Foote’s work had been presented as a reading at last year’s Pacific
Playwright’s Festival. Jennifer Kiger, associate director of the festival
and literary manager for the theater, said it has been SCR’s goal to
present a new staged work from a previous reading every year.
With construction closing SCR for most of the summer, theater leaders
have also eliminated workshop productions from this year’s festival and
instead replaced them with two full and new productions, hence
Greenberg’s “The Dazzle.”
Readings will highlight Cho’s “99 Histories,” “Exposed” by Beth
Henley, “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage, “Truth and Beauty” by Steven
Drukman and “Our Boy” by Julia Jordan.
“It really is an opportunity for not only the playwright to get to
[present] the play and learn more about it, but also for theater
professionals from all over America to have a chance to see the play for
the very first time,” Kiger said.
Amy Freed’s “The Beard of Avon,” which was staged last summer, is an
example of a work that was launched into theater’s good graces through
the 2000 festival.
Artistic directors, literary managers and other professionals from all
over the country attended the reading and booked “Avon,” which was
commissioned by SCR, to eventually be staged at their theaters.
“I certainly think of it as a really great step,” Cho said. “It’s
among the more public readings . . . and that’s invaluable, to have an
audience of just normal theatergoers.”
Cho is less nervous about “99 Histories” being read now, as it’s been
workshopped at the New York Theatre Workshop, the Sundance Theater Lab
and the Mark Taper Forum’s Asian American Theatre Workshop.
The play is about a Korean girl trying to figure out her origins by
sifting through memories, imaginings and facts passed down through
different points of views.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of origins,” said Cho, a
playwriting fellow at the Juilliard School in New York. “Because I’m a
child of immigrants . . . to a certain extent I always felt that past was
unknowable. . . . I think it’s a very human thing to want to know where
[you] came from.”
Having survived a number of readings now, “99 Histories” is
comfortable for Cho to hear aloud.
“I feel like I can put it forth and say, ‘yes, this represents who I
am as a writer,”’ she said.
FYI
* What: Readings at the Pacific Playwrights Festival
* When: “99 Histories” at 1 p.m. April 26, “Exposed” at 3 p.m. April
26, “Intimate Apparel” at 10:30 a.m. April 27, “Truth and Beauty” at 2
p.m. April 27, and “Our Boy” at 11 a.m. April 28 * Where: South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive,
Costa Mesa. “Truth and Beauty” will be read at the Westin South Coast
Plaza’s Mesa Verde Room, 686 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa
* Cost: $8 each
* Call: (714) 708-5555
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